Blackout hits US
The largest blackout in US history affected major conurbations in northeastern America and Canada late Thursday afternoon.
Major cities without power included New York City, and Detroit, and Ottawa and Toronto in Canada.
Road traffic was reduced to snail pace as police re-directed traffic and passengers on underground trains were left for hours crammed in subway cars.
Many trains ground to a standstill and flights were cancelled, though air traffic control continued operations for those flights in the sky, using diesel-powered backup generators.
Several nuclear power reactors were closed.
New York and New Jersey declared states of emergency.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg rejected suggestions that the outage was caused by terrorism, and forecasted that power would resume later Thursday.
The Canadian Prime Minister’s office said the blackout was the result of lightning hitting Con Edison power station near Niagara Falls in New York state.
The US’ largest phone company, Verizon Communications, said backup generators worked to leave landline services uninterrupted, though mobile phone service networks were affected as people groped in the dark to use their phones in New York.
As of 19:00 local time, all three New York-area airports were up and running, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
